*The name of my employer has been changed to "Schmayer" in order protect the innocent (me).
Depression has been described by some as anger turned inward. There is no room for expressing anger outwardly in Corporate America, so it's no wonder half of us working Americans are depressed. We all have to pretend like we're happy & fulfilled & satisfied all the time. It's a delicate charade. Sure, you can "vent." But do it too much or too often & you're labelled a resistor, a grump, a disgruntled employee, like the notorious homicidal postal worker.
Schmayer has, like a good Fortune 500 company, pretended to give a crap. Here are some of their half-assed attempts at shutting us up:
Stress Management Lunch n Learns
Wellness Works
Polar Bear Walking Club on the campus trail
Massage Therapist
Various weight loss incentive campaigns
Sharply discounted gym memberships
Various other programs sponsored by the Medical Dept
Employee Assistance Program
In all fairness, most of these are really good programs. They just don't solve my problem of hating the political game of pretending to be the corporate equivalent of a Stepford Wife. I play the game juuuuuust enough not to get myself fired. But try telling me not to express what I'm really thinking or feeling about something, and I don't care who you are, I'm gonna get pissed and rebel like the teenager I think I still I am. Even if you happen to be a VP. Uh, not that I'm saying this from experience or anything. This is STRICTLY hypothetical. ;-) Hence the reason I will never be in upper management. I used to keep my mouth shut more cause I was young & scared. I'm older & less scared now. Can't wait to see what happens 20 years from now! I'll probably either be making cones at Dairy Queen or will be an inpatient at Western Psych. It would be awesome if I could do both! We all have the right to dream.
Schmayer is proud to be among the top employers for working mothers nationwide. I know I am not a working mom, so maybe I don't have the right to judge, but that is not going to stop me! This is a bunch of propaganda & horse hockey. Pittsburgh is the US headquarters. There is no daycare, and the "lactation rooms" are kind of a joke. There are only 6 on a campus of 1500 people. Most of them are a section of a ladies' room that is partitioned off by a curtain. I would not want to prepare my child's lunch in there. Whatev. It's really none of my business, and I digress again.
Just like any other situation in life, you have to pick your battles at work. And I do. But there are so MANY battles. Every day. It's hard to choose. Maybe I could have a lottery system, i.e. "And today's winner iiiiiiiiiss.... begging for more resources to process customer samples!! Yay!"
So now you're asking yourself why I don't quit if I'm clearly so burned out. I ask myself that question a lot. The answer is something I hoped I would never say: I need money. More money than I ever thought I would need. There is something to be said for financial freedom. I once had dreams of working for the passion of something & having the money be a secondary reason. HA. That was so cute of me. I also used to be able to survive fairly easily on less than 1/2 of my current income. Now I'm spoiled. There. I said it. And as much as I SAY I'd rather serve ice cream, I think trying to perfect that little curl on the top of the cone would get old for me. There must be a masochistic part of me that actually LIKES the challenge of all of this nonsense. I make myself so mad sometimes!
So, until I find my dream job (where we work in our PJs & the water coolers dispense fruity rum drinks), I guess I'll continue to sell my soul to the man.
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